Blackwood Gallery

Karen Mirza and Brad Butler are London (UK) -based artists/filmmakers who have worked together since 1998. Since 2007 they have pursued a strain of practice entitled The Museum of Non Participation. The Museum of Non Participation is a collection of gestures, speech acts and audio-visual works, which have thus far been presented in Egypt, Pakistan, Germany and the UK. The concept of the Museum was born during a visit to the recently opened National Gallery of Art in Islamabad, Pakistan. As Mirza and Butler stood inside a controversial gallery of nude paintings, they witnessed the large-scale protests of the Lawyers Movement through a window of the gallery. In that stark collision of art and political praxis, the project germinated and has subsequently remained intent on interrogating this relationship. Since its inception, the Museum has consistently evolved through the geo-political ground upon which its works have been produced and presented.

The House of the Unexpected: Direct Speech Acts extends Mirza and Butler’s The Museum of Non Participation project to the Blackwood Gallery in Mississauga. Mirza and Butler will be in residence at the Blackwood Gallery from the beginning of September to mid-October.

SAVAC and the Blackwood Gallery invite participants to join the 'Direct Speech Acts' and 'Theatre of the Oppressed' workshops which will form the basis of thier project.

In partnership with SAVAC (South Asian Visual Arts Centre) and generously supported by Technovision (Pickering, ON), UTM Student Housing and Residence Life, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Toronto Arts Council and the Ontario Arts Council. We also would like to acknowledge the assistance of Technovision.